Europe Audiobooks | History

World War II in 1940: The History of the Fighting that Culminated with the German Conquest of Wester

One of the most famous people in the world came to tour the city of Paris for the first time on June 28, 1940. Over the next three hours, he rode through the city’s streets, stopping to tour L’Opéra Paris. He rode down the Champs-Élysées toward the Trocadero and the Eiffel Tower, where he had his picture taken. After passing through the Arc de Triomphe, he toured the Pantheon and old medieval churches, though he did not manage to see the Louvre or the Palace of Justice. Heading back to the airport, he told his staff, “It was the dream of my life to be permitted to see Paris. I cannot say how happy I am to have that dream fulfilled today.” Four years after his tour, Adolf Hitler would order the city’s garrison commander, General Dietrich von Choltitz, to destroy Paris, warning his subordinate that the city 'must not fall into the enemy's hand except lying in complete debris.' Of course, Paris was not destroyed before the Allies liberated it, but it would take more than 4 years for them to wrest control of France from Nazi Germany after they took the country by storm in about a month in 1940. The surrender of more than 1,200,000 isolated troops followed quickly in June 1940, yet in the midst of this disaster, the Allies contrived one coup that took even the victorious Wehrmacht aback: the evacuation of over 300,000 soldiers from the port of Dunkirk. This escape, hailed as “miraculous” at the time, provided England with a solid defensive force, the French with the kernel of a “Free French” army for the future, and the Western Allies with an invaluable boost to their morale during one of the war's darkest moments. With the clarity of historical hindsight, events proved Churchill correct. Operation Dynamo, as the British named the Dunkirk evacuation mission, bolstered British morale and defenses sufficiently to keep the “Sceptered Isle” in the war.

Charles River Editors (Author), Bill Caufield (Narrator)

Audiobook

Aquitaine: The End of a War

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice. By the Wayside… there are events and places worth a stopover. This book offers an introduction to one of the grandest events of the summer in Aquitaine, and provides an insight into the historical context which the event presents and brings to life in its own unique way: the final battle in the Hundred Years' War, by the Dordogne river. It is the end of a war and the end of an era. The main focus of this book is an outline of the historical events and background which set the seal on the end of this era. In addition, the author provides an introduction to the performance in Castillon-la-Bataille for anyone on holiday in the South-West of France or on the Atlantic coast. Includes suggestions for other places to visit in the area. Contents include: La bataille – the show English Guyenne The historic battle The end of knightly warfare Attractions near Castillon-la-Bataille

Annemarie Nikolaus (Author), Digital Voice Alistair G (Narrator)

Audiobook

Hotel Portofino: Lovers and Liars: A MAJOR ITV DRAMA

Romance, intrigue, and dangerous ambitions combine to create the perfect escape: welcome to the beautiful Hotel Portofino on the magical Italian Riviera. ***NOW A MAJOR TV DRAMA*** It is the summer of 1927 and Hotel Portofino is prospering under Bella's stewardship. As the season begins, Bella is keenly looking forward to her son Lucian's imminent arrival and the chance to discuss with him her plans to convert the hotel's basement into a spa. But then Bella's husband Cecil turns up unannounced, Over the course of several hot weeks in the middle of the Italian summer, Bella is forced to confront the reality of her relationship with Cecil and to decide to what extent she is prepared to go against social convention to get what she wants. As she welcomes her guests, old and new, an anonymous visit from a travel guide inspector threatens to make or break the hotel's future. Enjoy a new season at Hotel Portofino, a heady historical drama set during the 1920s. Perfect for fans of Downton Abbey and The Durrells.

J. P O’connell (Author), Esther Wane, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time

“Powerful, rich with details, moving, humane, and full of important lessons for an age when weapons of mass destruction are loose among us.” — Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb The Great Plague is one of the most compelling events in human history—even more so now, when the notion of plague has never loomed larger as a contemporary public concern. The plague that devastated Asia and Europe in the 14th century has been of never-ending interest to both scholarly and general readers. Many books on the plague rely on statistics to tell the story: how many people died; how farm output and trade declined. But statistics can’t convey what it was like to sit in Siena or Avignon and hear that a thousand people a day are dying two towns away. Or to have to chose between your own life and your duty to a mortally ill child or spouse. Or to live in a society where the bonds of blood and sentiment and law have lost all meaning, where anyone can murder or rape or plunder anyone else without fear of consequence. In The Great Mortality, author John Kelly lends an air of immediacy and intimacy to his telling of the journey of the plague as it traveled from the steppes of Russia, across Europe, and into England, killing 75 million people—one third of the known population—before it vanished.

John Kelly (Author), Matthew Lloyd Davies, Tbd (Narrator)

Audiobook

An Alternative History of Britain: Normans and Early Plantagenets

Continuing his exploration of British history, Timothy Venning examines the turning points of the period from the death of William I to the reign of Edward III and a little beyond. He discusses the crucial junctions at which history could easily have taken a different turn and analyzes the possible results. While speculative, the scenarios are highly plausible and rooted in a firm understanding of actual events and their context. Venning gives listeners a clearer understanding of the factors at play and why things happened the way they did, as well as a tantalizing view of what might so easily have been different. Key scenarios include: - The civil war of 1136-53, how either Stephen or Matilda might have won quick and the likely consequences. - What if Richard the Lionheart had not gone on Crusade, leaving the inept John to rule in his place? Could the English (Angevin) Empire in France have been saved? What if that fatal crossbow bolt had missed Richard in 1199, sparing him an early death? - What if Edward I's riding accident in 1294 had been fatal, leaving Edward II to succeed at ten years of age? - A whole chapter with scenarios surrounding the Scottish kings.

Timothy Venning (Author), Liam Gerrard (Narrator)

Audiobook

Trailblazer: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon – The First Feminist to Change Our World

Brought to you by Penguin. You have probably not heard of Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon but you certainly should have done. Name any 'modern' human rights movement, and she was a pioneer: feminism, equal opportunities, diversity, inclusion, mental health awareness, Black Lives Matter. While her name has been omitted from too many history books, it was Barbara that opened the doors for more famous names to walk through. And her influence owed as much to who she was as to what she did: people loved her for her robust sense of humour, cheerfulness and indiscriminate acts of kindness. This is a celebration of the life of the founder of Britain's suffrage movement: campaigner for equal opportunity in the workplace, the law, at home and beyond. Founder of Girton, the first university college for women, a committed activist for human rights, fervently anti-slavery, she was also one of Victorian England's finest female painters. Jane Robinson's brilliant new book shines a light on a remarkable woman who lived on her own terms and to whom we owe a huge debt. ©2024 Jane Robinson (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Jane Robinson (Author), Jane Robinson, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Burning Horizon: British Veteran Accounts of the Iraq War, 2003

Codenamed Operation Telic, the British component of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was the largest gathering of British troops since the Second World War. While the British public prepared for the worst as its soldiers were facing weapons of mass destruction, most servicemen and women were under no illusion that they were invading Iraq to rid the people of Saddam Hussein. While much has been said about WMD and Tony Blair's government, not nearly enough has been heard from those men and women that took part in Operation Telic. From controlling the vast Allied Air Forces in an AWACS plane down to submariners beneath the Persian Gulf firing Tomahawk Cruise missiles, from the steaming hot turret of a Challenger Tank as it is peppered with RPGs, to being on your belly in a sandstorm disarming unexploded bombs-these veteran accounts cover the whole spectrum of experiences. Polarized public opinion and the post-war media portrayal of the war has detracted from what was achieved by these forces, when tasked to do so, often with insufficient or inadequate resources. These are their stories of courage, fortitude, pride, and brotherhood amidst the harsh realities of modern asymmetric warfare.

Julian Whippy (Author), Nigel Patterson (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Zong: A Massacre, the Law & the End of Slavery

The first full review of the mass murder by crew members on the slave ship Zong and the lasting repercussions of this horrifying event On November 29, 1781, Captain Collingwood of the British ship Zong commanded his crew to throw overboard one-third of his cargo: a shipment of Africans bound for slavery in America. The captain believed his ship was off course, and he feared there was not enough drinking water to last until landfall. This book is the first to examine in detail the deplorable killings on the Zong, the lawsuit that ensued, how the murder of 132 slaves affected debates about slavery, and the way we remember the infamous Zong today. Historian James Walvin explores all aspects of the Zong's voyage and the subsequent trial-a case brought to court not for the murder of the slaves but as a suit against the insurers who denied the owners' claim that their 'cargo' had been necessarily jettisoned. The scandalous case prompted wide debate and fueled Britain's awakening abolition movement. Without the episode of the Zong, Walvin contends, the process of ending the slave trade would have taken an entirely different moral and political trajectory. He concludes with a fascinating discussion of how the case of the Zong, though unique in the history of slave ships, has come to be understood as typical of life on all such ships.

James Walvin (Author), Derek Perkins (Narrator)

Audiobook

Wild History: Journeys into Lost Scotland

From the presenter of BBC One's Scotland from the Sky You scramble up over the dunes of an isolated beach. You climb to the summit of a lonely hill. You pick your way through the eerie hush of a forest. And then you find them. The traces of the past. Perhaps they are marked by a tiny symbol on your map, perhaps not. There are no plaques to explain their fading presence before you, nothing to account for what they once were-who made them, lived in them, or abandoned them. Now they are merged with the landscape. They are being reclaimed by nature. They are wild history. In this book acclaimed author and presenter James Crawford introduces many such places all over the country, from the ruins of prehistoric forts and ancient, arcane burial sites, to abandoned bothies and boathouses, and the derelict traces of old, faded industry.

James Crawford (Author), Dave Gillies (Narrator)

Audiobook

Keir Starmer: The Biography

KEIR STARMER: The Biography is an authoritative study of a man who now stands on the brink of becoming Britain's next Prime Minister. If he succeeds, Starmer will be the first Labour leader in a generation to win power, even though most voters still say they don’t know much about him. It not only tells Starmer’s story but also examines the paradox of a politician often uncomfortable with politics, someone who is both remarkably ordinary and capable of defying all efforts to define him. Intended for publication in the foothills of a General Election campaign where all aspects of his life will come under the most intense scrutiny, the book is the result of more than a hundred hours of interviews with Starmer himself, his family, his closest friends, his most senior lieutenants, as well as opponents both from the Conservative Party and within his own. The book offers readers a fuller picture of his working class family and education, the values that drove him on through a career as a lawyer and public prosecutor, as well as his record since entering politics. It provides new detail about the role he played in bitter battles over Brexit and antisemitism, shows how he has transformed his party’s fortunes, and offers insight about the way he would govern if he enters Downing Street in what will be the most straitened circumstances facing any new Prime Minister since the end of the Second World War.

Tom Baldwin (Author), John Sackville (Narrator)

Audiobook

To the City: Life and Death Along the Ancient Walls of Istanbul

Walking along the crumbling defensive walls of Istanbul and talking to those he passes, Alexander Christie-Miller finds a distillation of the country’s history, a mirror of its present, and a shadow of its future. Caught between two seas and two continents, Istanbul lies at the centre of the most pressing challenges of our time. With environmental decay, rapacious development and tightening authoritarianism straining its social fabric to breaking point, it represents the precipitous moment civilizations around the world are currently facing. In and around its crumbling Byzantine-era fortifications, Alexander Christie-Miller meets people who are experiencing the looming crisis and fighting back, sometimes triumphing despite the odds. To the City seamlessly blends two narratives: the story of Turkey’s tumultuous recent past told through the lives of those who live around the walls, and the story of Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II’s siege and capture of the city in 1453. That event still looms large in Turkey, as Recep Tayyip Erdoğan like a latter-day sultan invokes its memory as part of his effort to transform the country in an echo of its imperial past. This is a meditation on the soul of Istanbul, a paean to its resilience and fortitude. Walk with Christie-Miller and see the danger, beauty and hope.

Alexander Christie-Miller (Author), Mark Meadows (Narrator)

Audiobook

Alfred Dreyfus: The Man at the Center of the Affair

An insightful new biography of the central figure in the Dreyfus Affair, focused on the man himself and based on newly accessible documents On January 5, 1895, Captain Alfred Dreyfus's cries of innocence were drowned out by a mob shouting 'Death to Judas!' In this book, Maurice Samuels gives listeners new insight into Dreyfus himself-the man at the center of the affair. He tells the story of Dreyfus's early life in Paris, his promising career as a French officer, the false accusation leading to his imprisonment on Devil's Island, the fight to prove his innocence that divided the French nation, and his life of quiet obscurity after World War I. Samuels's striking perspective is enriched by a newly available archive of more than three thousand documents and objects donated by the Dreyfus family. Unlike many historians, Samuels argues that Dreyfus was not an 'assimilated' Jew. Rather, he epitomized a new model of Jewish identity made possible by the French Revolution, when France became the first European nation to grant Jews full legal equality. This book analyzes Dreyfus's complex relationship to Judaism and to antisemitism over the course of his life-a story that, as global antisemitism rises, echoes still. It also shows the profound effect of the Dreyfus Affair on the lives of Jews around the world.

Maurice Samuels (Author), Jason Grasl (Narrator)

Audiobook

Europe Audiobooks in History